Chapter Two: The Hippocampus on the Cracked Lintel

There are small windows up by the eaves, too high for you to reach without some indiscreet wall-climbing.

"Just the rod and line? Five silver."

Felor doesn't see any sign of the crown inside the shop area. Likewise, Vad doesn't see anything on the octagonal building, although he does notice that the man with the cart seems increasingly wary at the two strangers pacing around the building watchfully.

Shamush follows Zangua into the shop room and proceeds through the dingy hallway to the tavern area. Two large windows and a set of double doors are left open to the dock, making the space uncharacteristically bright and cool for a tavern. An old couple sits at one table, sharing a tankard of ale and fidgeting with prayer beads. A dirty man with a shiny bald head and a neatly combed beard sits at another, a bowl of roasted potatoes untouched in front of him, cleaning his fingernails with a knife. He looks up at Shamush as he enters and does not look away. At a corner table, a woman with straw-colored hair nurses an infant. There is nobody behind the bar.

~meanwhile~

The young man looks quizzically at Mordred. "Only option? You mean for a place to stay? Yeah...the inn is...that's it. That's the inn. If you don't want to stay here, Headlee's only about six miles down the road."

The dock and part of the tavern section are on stilts. However, they're only raised up a few feet over the level of the pond, so getting under there will require crawling and getting wet. Assuming you're okay with that...

Mordred heads back to the inn and walks around the edge of the pond to the dock. Nobody seems to be in a position to observe you but the kids out on the skiffs, so you wade in, crouch down, and start exploring the underside of the dock.

There's not much under there. You do see something carved into one of the stilts, though, a string of letters and numerals: "JT SL 33 S"

Leth strolls quietly past the houses in the northeast part of the village, trying not to draw attention to himself, and not quite succeeding: the door of the second house opens a crack, and a woman leans out, watching him.

The houses are fairly large, as village houses go, wattle-and-daub with thatched roofs. The one the woman peers out from has an attached wooden shed and an animal pen; two small pigs root around in muck and snort at Leth's passing.

There is no sign of the crown on either of these homes, but as Leth proceeds to the cluster of houses just past them, something catches his eye immediately.

On the front door of one of these houses, plain as day, is the carved symbol of the Six-Pronged Crown.

Good call, Leth!

So thinking about planning our stakeout, Maybe Felor and Leth can conceal themselves in the Garden, while Zangua and Shamush hide in the Octagon, waiting for a shout? Given the small size of the village, I don't know if this plan even makes sense, though. I was envisioning a more bustling town where we could blend in with the populace to some extent. We are already super obvious in the village, so maybe just all of us go knock on the door of that house and hang out until dark if no one answers?

Yes, this is a very small village, basically just a fishing/brewing settlement in the wetlands around the Ophid headwaters. It's fairly clear that while the villagers are already collectively pretty aware of your presence here at this point, and any kind of lying-in-wait behavior will probably not go over well.

It's probably a little less than two hours til dusk.

Touring around the rest of the village, Leth sees a woman tending a garden, a boy feeding chickens and pigs, and observes a heavy horse-drawn cart coming in from the trail to the main road. There are seven homes in total on this side of the village, and a round stone building that probably houses a mill. The people he passes by watch him, but none seem overly concerned by his presence. He returns to the inn just in time to see Mordred wading into the pond to explore under the dock.

Let's say you get Mordred's attention right as he's examining the letters on the stilt. You can collect Vad, Felor, and Zangua easily enough; Shamush has been in the tavern room for most of this time and you'll need to find him there.

The village isn't so crowded that you can't go off and have a private discussion by the pond or back by the trees. You can always get a room, too.